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Today's Must Read
We've heard CIA Director Michael Hayden's confusing and risible explanation for why the CIA's torture tapes were destroyed. And there have been a number of media accounts citing dozens of unanimous government officials that haven't managed to shed much light. But today's Washington Post provides about as clear of a narrative as we're likely to get on why the tapes were made, when they were made, and why they were destroyed.
Here's what they came up with: "the taping was conducted from August to December 2002 to demonstrate that interrogators were following the detailed rules set by lawyers and medical experts in Washington, and were not causing a detainee's death." CIA officials have also said that videotapes of the interrogations would have been very useful for reviewing what the detainees had said.
And here's why they were destroyed, according to the Post. The Post broke news of the CIA's black sites in November of 2005. That made CIA officials even more nervous that "the agency could be publicly shamed and that those involved in waterboarding and other extreme interrogation techniques would be hauled before a grand jury or a congressional inquiry." At the same time, the station chief in Bangkok, who'd had the tapes in a safe in the U.S. Embassy compound there for three years, was retiring and "wanted to resolve the matter before he left." So he sent a cable to CIA headquarters asking if he could destroy them.
The rest we know. Then-operations chief Jose Rodriguez checked with two CIA lawyers who said that the agency was not required to preserve them. Since no one in the administration had directly forbidden the destruction of the tapes, he went ahead and gave the station chief the go-ahead.
And no one seemed to be very upset after the deed was done: "Word of the resulting destruction, one former official said, was greeted by widespread relief among clandestine officers, and Rodriguez was neither penalized nor reprimanded, publicly or privately, by then-CIA Director Porter J. Goss, according to two officials briefed on exchanges between the two men."
The Post also has more details on the Justice Department and White House discussions about the tapes:
The tapes were discussed with White House lawyers twice, according to a senior U.S. official. The first occasion was a meeting convened by Muller and senior lawyers of the White House and the Justice Department specifically to discuss their fate. The other discussion was described by one participant as "fleeting," when the existence of the tapes came up during a spring 2004 meeting to discuss the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, the official said.
And can you tell who's missing in this tally?
Those known to have counseled against the tapes' destruction include John B. Bellinger III, while serving as the National Security Council's top legal adviser; Harriet E. Miers, while serving as the top White House counsel; George J. Tenet, while serving as CIA director; Muller, while serving as the CIA's general counsel; and John D. Negroponte, while serving as director of national intelligence.
If you said David Addington, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, you were right. Alberto Gonzales is another notable exception. Although The New York Times has reported that Addington, who's done so much to shape the administration's torture policy, took part in discussions about the tapes, he somehow didn't make the list here. The Times also cited a "former senior intelligence official" as saying that "there had been “vigorous sentiment” among some top White House officials to destroy the tapes." But the official wouldn't specify who that was. I think we might have our winners.
Comments (48)
Billy Pilgrim wrote on January 16, 2008 10:32 AM:It's just a matter of time before an insider comes forward and brings down the entire house of cards.
Margaret Tucker wrote on January 16, 2008 10:40 AM:Time's running out.
chisholm wrote on January 16, 2008 10:53 AM:This is a surprisingly tight story for these clowns. It's amazing how incompetent they are when it comes to everything except concocting lies to cover their own criminal asses.
doofman wrote on January 16, 2008 10:56 AM:The last I checked, there's no statute of limitations on war crimes. This isn't about impeachment, this is about bringing war criminals to justice.
Alguien wrote on January 16, 2008 11:08 AM:It has been the case, all along, for every single scandal, that all the roads lead invariably to the VP's office.
pejamo wrote on January 16, 2008 11:16 AM:And every single time the matter invariably dies at the doorstep without further action. From Plamegate, attorneygate and torturegate, how many more "gates" have to pile up before we IMPEACH the guy???
And why is Kucinich, the only guy who dared to bring articles of impeachment , totally ignored (or even ridiculed) by the media? If people really cared about the direction this country is going and about its image abroad, KUCINICH would be the front runner. Unfortunately, and no matter who gets elected in November, we are likely to get more of the same...
great Frontline last night all about Addington and Cheney. Presented the tale of the administration's assertion of executive power and its repercussions in as clear a narrative as I've seen. Check it out.
JohnG wrote on January 16, 2008 11:18 AM:January 19, 2009 - Bush issues a blanket pardon for all civilian and military persons carrying out Administration policy. End of story.
ineedalife wrote on January 16, 2008 11:25 AM:Hmmm, how did they get into a safe in Bangkok? Didn't Congressional leaders see them? So they were flying them around the world and then squirreling them away in third world countries for what purpose?
iceboxlogic wrote on January 16, 2008 11:30 AM:...so why Bangkok? That's a fascinating lead...
chisholm wrote on January 16, 2008 11:33 AM:It's funny, like everyone who's been paying attention, I'm dying to see the Bush administration brought to justice--there are so many outrages they need to do time for it's hard to know where to begin. But given their will to power, their control and perversion of the judicial branch, and the perfect emasculation of the Democratic party, it's pretty much not going to happen. Anyone have any suggestions on how to ease the swallowing of such a bitter pill? It's going to kill me to see them all retire to smugly enjoy the profits of these past 8 years! Not to mention the fact that so many of them will be back in the next R administration--Elliot Abrams for a third go-round?!
Nannie Turner wrote on January 16, 2008 11:34 AM:The entire congress and Senate know exactly what is going on behind the scenes and they are complicit in this.They are not going to let the American people know what is happening and has been happening every since Bush/Cheney were appointed by the supreme court.They could have stopped them then and they didnt.The only way we are going to put a stop to this is to vote everyone of them out and elect a new congress and senate.They continue to "investigate" and this is only a stalling tactic.Absolutely nothing has come of any of their investigations.They will continue with this stalling till the end of the bush term.
anon wrote on January 16, 2008 11:36 AM:...Bush issues a blanket pardon for all...End of story...
brian wrote on January 16, 2008 11:42 AM:Yup, I think that's how it's going to end.
Question : what happened before the 'tapes' got to the safe in Bangkok ?
It is hard to believe that they were all gathered together in that place without having been copied.
It is very, very easy to transfer video to a computer.
Then the 'tapes' become files that are eaily copied and transferred elsewhere.
There was a lot of interest in these tapes before they got to the safe in Bangkok.
Who has copies now ? Addington and Cheney sure don't !!
Gene wrote on January 16, 2008 11:49 AM:The tapes were in the Bangkok station because the secret prison where these operatives were held and interrogated was within the area of control of the CIA station in Bangkok (probably in Thailand). It was not an effort to hide them - it was where they belonged. What is not at all clear is why no copy or copies were made. It would be unusual for such an important video to only exist at the CIA station in Bangkok. It should have been transferred or copied and the copy transferred to CIA Langley. If it was, indeed, created for the purpose of legal review, it (or a copy) would have come to Langley at some point.
danger wrote on January 16, 2008 11:50 AM:brian -
I have a tough time believing a copy of this is only in Bangkok too. Makes me wonder where else they could possibly be being held.
lgs wrote on January 16, 2008 11:52 AM:the interegation took place in thailand
jean young wrote on January 16, 2008 11:53 AM:i reccommend 'front-line's' program, on last night...a chilling tale of the pursuit of power....focusing on cheney and his henchman, addington....it is obvious.bush simply sat in his office and waited for these two men to tell him what to do.........
sailmaker wrote on January 16, 2008 12:00 PM:danger -
Poland, Romania, various North African countries, Syria, Jordan, Gitmo, all the black site places. They were doing psych experiments according to Naomi Klein in 'The Shock Doctrine' , and wanted to keep records to 'see what worked' where 'enhanced interrogation techniques' or torture were used.
Anonymous wrote on January 16, 2008 12:14 PM:JohnG wrote on January 16, 2008 11:18 AM:
I don't think that that pardon will supercede all legal domicile claims, and that is at the cornerstone of what to do with the remaining detainees.
I will say this, that the idea to torture was ill conceived initially, has created an ongoing problem after that policy was initiated, and the entire net effect of the policy was to stiffle internal public consumption to opposition to any criticism of how the conflict in the GWOT was handled.
I also would like to point out that the number of repeated assertions that alluded to the connection of reasoned and principled disagreement to US policy was greeted repeatedly by countering assertions by those who advocated this policy that that belief was tantamount to support and collusion to anti-american support.
And in closing, the policy of torture was a net negative in the GWOT, advocated by people whom now stand largely discredited in their planning and execution on the GWOT, and summed up best by the exchange between Peter Pace and Donald Rumsfeld in expectations on how uniformed soldiers should address the encountering of torture in Iraq.
I find a distinct correlation between the decline of attacks in Iraq and the removal of Donald Rumsfeld and the establishment of an expectation that the support of torture was no longer part of the effort to spread democracy in the Middle East.
The Neoconservative push for torture had nothing to add to actionable intelligence as the time decay between apprehending a detainee, and the location of associates, made that prolonged act of torture an act of declining returns especially after the news releases of the apprehension of key detainees.
I think it is difficult to seperate the implicit threat, that if you disagree with Neoconservatives that you stand a chance of detainment and torture was not the genuine purpose of this policy.
For those whom conducted torture and did illicit actionable intelligence, that intelligence when weighed in respect to the negative aspects of the polciy, has to be acknowledged as in general a failure, expecially when torture is 'always on the table' when lurid and insidious circumstances are encountered and jury nullification and the actionable intelligence derived warranted the act.
So this decision to use torture went beyond the politicizing of intelligence, beyond cherry picking the facts, and was instead in final analysis a psyops campaign against the intelligence community itself to stiffle any fact that didn't support Neoconservative beliefs.
Really this was similar to McCarthyism, or detaining US Japaneese, or allot of other political hysterias, and the correct response as a uniformed professional is to make it clear that professional conduct is expected, that a chain of command exists, and that accountability matters.
So I'm not at all surprised at this pontious pilate response, this political charade of evading responsibility, casting blame, scapegoating, and the act of destroying these tapes, nor the continuing issue of what to do with these detainees. But when professionals start drinking the koolaid, enter into the political hysteria as part of policy, and politicians disavow their support, "I voted against torture before I supported it" you should have known all along somebody is going to be holding a bag or reeking shit.
The Confidence Man wrote on January 16, 2008 12:52 PM:I remain convinced that Cheney/Addington's most proximal cause for destroying the tapes was Pat Fitzgerald's investigation. Remember, Scooter was indicted the month before the tapes were destroyed.
Richard Leary wrote on January 16, 2008 12:53 PM:Bush cares about Bush, period. A blanket pardon of the others would make Bush vulnerable, because Addington and the others couldn't use the Fifth Amendment as a reason not to cooperate with an investigation or prosecutor. To be safe, Bush would have to include himself in the blanket pardon. He won't do that, though, because it would destroy whatever hopes -- more likely, fantasies -- he has about his legacy. Just look at the shitstorm caused by Clinton's last minute pardon of Marc Rich, who had no connection to Clinton's administration. Even the act of pardoning high-ranking officials of his Administration before an investigation had even begun -- Poppy had pardoned Weinberger when Lawrence Walsh was hot on his trail -- would create a smell of corruption that would forever consign the shrub to the bottom position in presidential rankings.
senilebiker wrote on January 16, 2008 1:07 PM:One the other hand, one can never go broke betting on the irrationiality of George W. Bush.
Interesting Question.
Can you issue a pardon for someone who at that time has not been accuses or indicted?
Surely a pardon is for a specific crime that one has been convicted of, or is at a minimum formally accused of.
Issueing a "blanket"pardon would mean that an administration offical would be pardoned of all and any crimes he or she may have committed in the past.
Any clues.
Gramma Millie wrote on January 16, 2008 1:12 PM:John G.,
Question: Does the presidential pardon power extend to war crimes?
moondancer wrote on January 16, 2008 1:24 PM:I hope some official query can get to Addington. My life experience and instinct tell me that loud mouth bullies like him are just pussies waiting for a chance to turn states evidence to save their soft pink hides. He disgusts me.
john wrote on January 16, 2008 1:26 PM:In the first graf, "And there have been a number of media accounts citing dozens of unanimous government officials ..."
Do you mean "anonymous government officials?"
Gene wrote on January 16, 2008 1:39 PM:The President can pardon persons for uncharged crimes (Nixon), but the acceptance of the pardon assumes guilt. With regard to pardons for "War Crimes" - it depends on what you mean. There is a domestic "war crimes" statute which the President can pardon (as awful a history as that would create), but the traditional international war crimes cannot be pardoned by the President.
Long Memory wrote on January 16, 2008 1:47 PM:I'd like to briefly repeat what I've said before: I hope that international authorities will arrest any of these people who ever step foot outside this country again. These people are war criminals, pure and simple, and the international courts are the place for them. They deserve to be taken into custody and held until the court decides what to do with them. They look evil, and they soil our country every day they go unpunished.
Avenger wrote on January 16, 2008 2:20 PM:Must agree with doofman, the Senate will never convict Fratboy or the Devil. One can only hope that the next President and his Attorney General will have the balls to indict and try them!
Anonymous wrote on January 16, 2008 3:58 PM:It's going to kill me to see them all retire to smugly enjoy the profits of these past 8 years!
Chisolm
Then you have nothing to lose, do you? And many, many others will have much to gain.
Mooser wrote on January 16, 2008 3:59 PM:It's going to kill me to see them all retire to smugly enjoy the profits of these past 8 years!
Chisolm
Then you have nothing to lose, do you?
Anonymous wrote on January 16, 2008 5:05 PM:And many, many others in your situation will have much to gain, and to avenge.
"doofman wrote on January 16, 2008 10:56 AM:
"The last I checked, there's no statute of limitations on war crimes. This isn't about impeachment, this is about bringing war criminals to justice."
It's about BOTH impeachment AND legitimate jutice for war crimes.
I say impeach, remove, "rendition" to the Hague.
JNagarya wrote on January 16, 2008 5:06 PM:"doofman wrote on January 16, 2008 10:56 AM:
"The last I checked, there's no statute of limitations on war crimes. This isn't about impeachment, this is about bringing war criminals to justice."
It's about BOTH impeachment and war crimes. Impeach, remove, "rendition" to the Hague for actual fiar trial, unlike those they deny everyone else, beginning with Saddam Hussein.
JNagarya wrote on January 16, 2008 5:17 PM:Torture cannot be made legal, despite the fig-leaf effort at appreacnes on the point by Congress.
The US is signatory to various international anti-torture instruments. The Constitution expressly makes such instrumets part of the "law of the land". The law of the land is the Constitution, and the only way to alter the Constitution is by amendment. Neither Congress, the Executive, nor the Judiciary, single or all together, can change it.
That means, the domesic ban against torture aside, that those international prohibitions apply domestically.
Further, the US cannot unilaterally change international law -- it is not the only signatory thereto; and not all international law is subject to nullifcation simply because a Bushit says so. That means it also cannot change the definition of torture to suit itself and its program of state terrorism. (The intent of the torture is to terrorize -- mostly as in "Send a message" -- because the Bushit criminal enterprise already knows it is ineffective, useless, in terms of gathering useful intelligence. And I don't leave out the psychological aspect: chickenhawk bullies finally getting power and using it to get back at their perceived and remembered childhood enemies. As raw abuse of power simply "because I can".)
Pardons, specific or blanket, do not absolve crimes committed under international law, or those instruments as part of the law of the land. There are those, of course, who would want to "move on" -- change the subject, thus leaving the precedent established and unrepudiated. That would leave the US in the posture of rogue state.
Impeach, remove, "rendition" to the Hague.
Clericus wrote on January 16, 2008 5:19 PM:We can always hope that the International Court goes ahead and tries Bush, Cheney, Addington, Gonzales, and the whole vile crew in absentia, finds them guilty, and forces them to spend their lives in terror that they will be extradited and made to face long prison terms or, in a more perfect world, a firing squad.
Dennis wrote on January 16, 2008 5:19 PM:Anonymous wrote on January 16, 2008 3:58 PM: "It's going to kill me to see them all retire to smugly enjoy the profits of these past 8 years!"
Chisolm
------------------------------------
I agree, no different than a loosing, retiring CEO who gets a big severance package. In the case of the corporation the lose is made up by charging the customer more.
In the case of politics it's landing a plush job with these same corporations or being hired by some conservative university or else a conservative think tank.
You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.
Jess wrote on January 16, 2008 5:31 PM:Maybe the taping occurred in Bangkok?
The experts are just south of the border
~ Jess
Anonymous wrote on January 16, 2008 6:51 PM:Who is willing to -- under a promise of immunity -- narrowly agree to say, "Because of Addington's alleged pressure to destroy evidence the ICC foreseeably had an interest, we destroyed the tapes." Then the ICC can confront Addington for alleged war crimes-evidence destruction-conspiracy.
One pawn down for the conviction and disbarment of Addington: Not such a bad deal. Maybe there's a better one: Someone willing to discuss Addington's alleged role in re war crimes evidence destruction without any immunity.
Anonymous wrote on January 16, 2008 6:58 PM:The Confidence Man wrote on January 16, 2008 12:52 PM
Thank you for your comment. Would like to hear more: "I remain convinced that Cheney/Addington's most proximal cause for destroying the tapes was Pat Fitzgerald's investigation. Remember, Scooter was indicted the month before the tapes were destroyed."
Could you share your thoughts to discuss more. Here are some questions that may be useful in your response; perhaps you have other considerations:
- What would they learn from the Plame investigation that would trigger a destruction: Were they given grand jury secret evidence of what the grand jury was deliberating?
- Could there not be issues with Eastern Europe, or is this on the wrong timeline?
- What specific information, discussion, concerns, or events triggered the decision to say, "We've debated this long enough, we really need to make a decision"?
- The JAGs had been ignored for years. Yet, we're asked to believe there was a "debate" whether to keep or not keep the tapes. Who was acting as a counterweight -- since 2002 when the tape was made until 2005 -- to do what the JAGs had not done, counteract Addington, and dissuade action and a decision on a tape destruction decision?
- Why should we believe the "debate since 2002 and 2005", when the tape was "finally destroyed" was real, and not a "ruse debate" to create a climate of "deliberation" as a shield to any access to legal counsel discussions on that?
- If there was only one meeting before the final meeting, is this really a "debate protected by any privilege" or is it more of a foreboding sense of doom: "We have a problem here, and haven't made a decision how to destroy the evidence the ICC forseeeably would want"?
- Let's suppose there is a link between what Fizgerald was doing and the CIA tape destruction: Why would someone be concerned with a tape before the ICC; but they didn't show any concern about a CIA agent name: Are we asked to believe that Libby's lying to the Grand Jury wasn't about protecting OVP involvement with that outing, but simply lying to shield information, regardless it's value?
DennisForPresident wrote on January 16, 2008 8:00 PM:Congressman Wexler, discussing his call for hearings on the impeachment of Dick Cheney, emphasized that the Supreme Court has determined that "executive privilege" cannot be invoked during a House impeachment investigation. Lets get to the bottom of this rotten mess!
Jim wrote on January 17, 2008 12:18 AM:They will never be brought to justice. Just look at the emails they deleted, and now we learn the backup tapes have been written over so the emails are gone for good. They have learned that you really can just ignore Congress, destroy evidence and blithely go on your merry way. And don't think future administrations won't follow this example. George Bush, who has generally failed or underachieved at everything he has done in his life, will be shown to be tremendously successful in causing material damage to this country.
merryll wrote on January 17, 2008 1:20 AM:Seems to me the purpose of the torture wasn't to gather evidence, but to destroy it. The testimony of a tortured suspect is useless in court.
thepeoplechoose wrote on January 17, 2008 4:41 AM:Those tapes were destroyed because the corrupt political engine of the Republican Party permitted it. Their threshold of safety from prosecution was exceeded should those tapes have been exposed. Period.
Marys cloned lamb wrote on January 17, 2008 5:50 AM:Addington is just practicing his Catholic Inquisition torture of heretics for pious pleasure beliefs. This is faith-based foreign policy at work. And he's covering up just like the pedophile priest-coddling Nazi Pope Razi.
Marys cloned lamb wrote on January 17, 2008 5:52 AM:Addington is just practicing his Catholic Inquisition torture of heretics for pious pleasure beliefs. This is faith-based foreign policy at work. And he's covering up just like the pedophile priest-coddling Nazi Pope Razi.
William DePaulo wrote on January 17, 2008 6:52 AM:On the pardon issue, you need to factor in the fact that the lame duck Republican congress, after the Nov 06 election but before the dems took control in Jan 07, passed, and Bush signed into law, an amendment to the US criminal code amending the so-called "War Crimes" statute to change the definition of torture. The change effectively wrote out of the law the specific things that had been disclosed, like waterboarding. And the key provision? The amendment was made retroactive to something like 1996. The punch line is that these guys think they dont need a pardon. They can't be indicted now -- in their view -- because the statute, now in effect, does not criminalize the behavior they engaged in. What will take cagones is for a prosecutor to assert that the Nov 06 amendment was an unconstitutional act, because it was a violation of the separation of powers which vests in the president alone the power of pardon -- and, yes, requires an acceptance.
chisholm wrote on January 17, 2008 1:59 PM:Jim--with all due respect, I think you're dead wrong. The next Democratic administration is going to get its ass handed to it on a silver platter. That's going to be the real kicker to this whole thing--Bush, Cheney et al skating on their countless crimes and pocket-lining, but a Dem administration being held to an entirely different standard. The GOP noise machine will make sure the next Dem president gets the full Bill Clinton treatment.
Frederick wrote on January 17, 2008 5:25 PM:Private citizen Bush, may not be as fortunate as public Bush at evading his fate. May have a
Al in Austex wrote on January 17, 2008 8:42 PM:vacation at the Hague in his future.
Moondancer 16th jAN 2008 @ 1324 HOURS.
MD - Addington has been with Cheney a very long time . Addington & Cheney both are true believers in the unitarian application of the Imperial Presidency.
And as all true believers Addinngton will never surrender -- willingly to those who must hold him accountable.
But MD here's the current 'deaL" ,at least the way I asset it - The brave and patriotic professionals at your Central Intelligence Agency have laid a very good ambush for the criminal cabal at the OVP - the outline of the coming engagement reads sort of like this =
" We -the good guys" at Langley have the documents etc that ordered us to torture detainees- and those same documents also have who ordered these war crimes too be committed.
" We - the good guys" still too have copies of the documents that ordered us to destroy the tapes .
" We the good guys "still also have copies of the "TAPES" squirrelled away for just the right moment to ADVERSELY affect all the miscreants that caused the good , and patriotic INTEL community to commit war crimes.
This engagement MD will take place in the courts, the Congress & the MSM- and finally I believe that a viable Independent Prosecutor will be appointed to get to the bottom of this catyclismic conspiracy aka the OVP.
Yes, Addington will not go quietly .
But he wil eventually go . \
P.S.
( What do you think Mr jUICY -is it a well laid an ambush as it appears to be -And Mr. J - do you reckon all the JAGS that opposed the illegal TORTURE have already be deposed by the investigators in Conyers shop ?)